Antecedentes

Education research is always grouped under the two opposite epistemological positions: positivism and interpretivism (Wellington 1996; Hughes and Sharrock 1997; Bryman 2008). Adopted from natural science, the term “positivism” has been widely accepted and used to describe quantitative research. It is also called as “positive orthodoxy” (Hughes and Sharrock 1997). Wellington (2000) indicated that the purpose of positivist research is to explore “generalization” and “hard” quantitative data. While, “interpretivism” believes in objectivism, theory testing, and qualitative research (David and Sutton 2004). According to Robson (2002), being interpretive, it is the “task of the researcher is to understand the multiple social constructions of meaning and knowledge” (p.27). It also tends to acquire multiple perspectives to view the methods of interview and observation. As in much educational research, this study combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches for data collection and analysis

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(Brannen 1992). Although qualitative and quantitative approaches present different views of research inquiry in terms of the nature of the different research investigation environments and different research methods adopted to collect data and trial data collected (Brannen 1992), the employment of “mixed method design” helps this research project to collect multiple data by adopting different approaches in order to improve its reliability, validity or trustworthiness (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004).

The selected research tools for the current research aimed to retrieve valuable information so as to respond to the three research questions. The relationship between each research question and suitable research tools can be shown as follows: (See table 3.1).

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Table 3.1 Research questions and suitable research tools

Research question Instrument Participants

1. What are the reasons for introducing Mandarin Chinese as a new language in a sample of schools in the English context?

Interview

Head Teachers and heads of MFL department

2. What are the teaching methods used and what are the teachers’ goals in Mandarin Chinese teaching?

a) Age of groups, classroom layout and duration of each lesson

Classroom

observation Teacher and pupils

b) teaching method and teachers’ goals Interview,

observation Teacher

c) class plan and management Observation,

interview Teacher

d) teacher-pupil interaction Observation Teacher and pupils

e) staff supply Observation,

interview

Head teacher, head of department, and teacher

3. What are teachers’ and pupils’ views about teaching and learning Mandarin Chinese?

Pupils’ feedback and perceptions Questionnaire Pupils

Teachers’ perceptions Interviews Teachers

Each data collection method has its advantages, although, qualitative research methods have mainly been accepted and widely used in education research; they focus on the nature of the research phenomenon, researcher’s engagement with the phenomenon under investigation and the methods used to gather details about the

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phenomenon (Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias 1996). On the contrary, in the quantitative tradition, research instruments are “pre-determined” and “finely-tuned” technical tools which limit researcher’s flexibility (Brannen 1992). Fenstermacher’s (1986) explanation on the characteristics of quantitative approach echoed Brannen’s (1992) point of “in a specific context, quantitative methods are also known as confirmatory, hypothesis testing, predictive methods” (Wittrock 1986, p.41). Meanwhile Aliaga and Gunderson (2002, cited in Muijs 2004) define quantitative research as “explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analysed using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics)”. Quantitative data are gathered to generate numerical answers to test hypotheses (Creswell 2007). From the above illustration, the major advantage of the qualitative approach is that it provides a flexible research environment for researchers and allows them to discover unexpected and new occurrences (Jacobs, Kawanaka et al. 1999). In terms of data treatment, qualitative data are collected in order to explore the practice or collaboration in depth and to form meaning and hypothetical propositions. In comparison to the qualitative approach, the quantitative approach gains information from a large number of units.

A piece of research usually includes a number of different research questions and “a research method appropriate for one question may be inappropriate for another”(Gray 2004 cited in Wu 2010, P.142). As a mixed method research design, this research combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches which included multiple research instruments. It tended to understand collected data from various points of

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view, as well as to answer research questions more comprehensively. The qualitative investigation aimed to explore more details in the nature of setting and rationales for schools introducing Mandarin Chinese, classroom practice such as teacher-pupils interaction, class plan, activities and teaching methods; while the quantitative investigation helped to quantify pupils’ feedback of their Mandarin Chinese learning experiences.

In the research design, adopting appropriate research instruments can also collect many items of data that usually do not appear in quantitative form, such as beliefs and attitudes (DanielMuijs 2004). For example, as a part of the research questions, this research aimed to collect data on pupils’ attitudes to their Mandarin Chinese learning experiences and towards their teachers of Mandarin Chinese. Normally, it is impossible to shape people’s attitude in numerical scales, however, by developing a questionnaire, each answer was pre-coded or given a number and pupils were asked to rate their experience. Then, the numerical data about pupils’ attitudes can be analysed statistically.

However, every research approach has its restrictions as well as advantages (Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias 1996). Qualitative studies are commonly challenged for their validity and reliability due to potential inconsistency, researcher’s personal bias and judgements during the process of data analysis (Silverman 2005). This might be due to the fact that in qualitative research, the researcher usually plays

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the role as core or main data collector, interpreter and analyser. In this sense, their personal living, working and education experiences would become a barrier to their work in the data analysis process. In referring to section 3.6.1 in this research, my supervisors and a native English speaker with a PhD degree helped me check the questions used in the interviews, classroom observations and questionnaire, during the designing stage. In addition, inviting participants to check the transcription of their interview content also helped to strengthen the reliability of data collected. Moreover, the employment of a questionnaire survey enhanced the data collected through the purely qualitative approach which in turn enhanced the validity of the research and avoided the problem of generalisation from qualitative research (Zach 2006).

The terms qualitative and quantitative are not only used in regard to research methods per se, they refer to data collected as well (Bryman 2008). Besides data gained from qualitative approaches, in this research, open-ended questions in the survey were also in the form of qualitative data collected. Furthermore, written text was preferred, for the opportunity of comments after each question; it aimed to provide in-depth information or rationale behind pupils’ choices and help them to explain their answers clearly. Qualitative data collected from the survey were coded and used to answer research questions.

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3.3 Research design

The design of a particular research depends on specific paradigms chosen by the researcher (Creswell 2007). After considering the rationale behind choosing pragmatism and mixed research methods for this research, this section explains the planning and implementation of the research design to study Mandarin Chinese teaching and learning in a sample of local schools in England. This is accomplished alongside the examination of issues arising through the process. Miles & Huberman (1994) argued the need for clarity on the part of the researcher when planning the process (p.181). The purpose of this study was to understand the rationales for both introducing Mandarin Chinese in English schools and teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions of this process. This study did not simply concentrate on the reasons for introducing Mandarin Chinese from each selected school; it sought to collect information on what happens inside the Mandarin class when the teacher and learners work together. With such a goal in mind, it is necessary to adopt a research approach to investigate real settings and further examine the discourses embedded in these settings (Zach 2006).